ʿAmr ibn ʿUbaid

Abu Amr ibn'Uthmān'Ubaid ( Arabic أبو عثمان عمرو بن عبيد, DMG Abū ʿUṯmān ʿAmr ibn ʿUbaid geb. 699 in Basra , d. 761 Marrān near Mecca ) was an Islamic theologian and hadith narrator who is assigned to the Qadarīya and is one of the founders of the Muʿtazila alongside Wāsil ibn ʿAtā ' . At the beginning of the Abbasid period he had a very large following. ʿAmr was in a close relationship with the caliph al-Mansūr , but was suspected by him of preparing an uprising against him.

origin

ʿAmr was a client of the ʿArāda family, which belonged to the Balʿadawīya subgroup of the Hanzala branch of the Arab tribe of Tamīm. His own family came from the Kabul region in what is now Afghanistan. His grandfather Bāb was captured there when the Muslims under ʿAbdallāh b. Samura had conquered Kabul between 663 and 665 and had been brought to Basra . ʿAmr's father ʿUbaid, who was trained as a weaver, served as a police officer in Basra under al-Hajjaj ibn Yūsuf .

Life

Under the late Umayyads

ʿAmr learned the weaving trade like his father and probably made the acquaintance of Wāsil ibn ʿAtā 'of the same age , who earned his living as a yarn dealer in Basra. Their close relationship was also reflected in the fact that Wāsil married ʿAmr's sister. ʿAmr belonged to the teaching circle of al-Hasan al-Basrī and was interested in Kalām . After al-Hasan's death in 728 Amr seems to Qatada ibn Di'āma (d. 735) to have fought for the leadership of the teaching circle. After losing this quarrel, he joined Wāsil ibn ʿAtā '. At the dogmatic level, the two originally represented different views. But Wāsil is said to have converted ʿAmr in a long argument about his own doctrine of the intermediate status ( al-manzila baina l-manzilatain ) of the mortal sinner . The break with the other disciples of al-Hasan al-Basrī went so far that some of them no longer greeted him. In 744 ʿAmr expressed himself very praiseworthy to the Qadaritic Umayyad caliph Yazīd III. He is also said to have asked his people to move out to support him. After the death of Wāsil in 749, ʿAmr took his place as leader of the movement he founded.

Although ʿAmr worked as a weaver, he lived mainly from renting a house in which palm leaf weavers ( ḫauwāṣūn ) lived. From this he received an income of one dinar per month . It is also testified that ʿAmr ibn ʿUbaid was related to Abū Jaʿfar, the later Abbasid caliph al-Mansūr , and had an influence on his views even before the fall of the Umaiyads . When Abū Jafar came to Basra, he stayed with ʿAmr ibn ʿUbaid, who paid for his costs and did him good deeds.

During the reign of al-Mansour

ʿAmr's following grew considerably in the early Abbasid period. Various sources report that 30,000 people listened to his command. Abū Dschaʿfar al-Mansūr maintained the friendly relationship with him after he came to power in 754. However, ʿAmr was also courted by the Alidian pretenders to the throne. ʿAbdallāh, the father of Muhammad an-Nafs al-Zakīya , wrote a letter to ʿAmr and tried to win him over to the cause of the Aliden. There were also rumors that ʿAmr was preparing an uprising against al-Mansūr. Possibly there was something to the rumors, because it is narrated that ʿAmr asked the Qādī of Kufa Ibn Schubruma (d. 761) to do jihad and this with the commandment of Amr bi-l-maʿrūf wa-n-nahy ʿan al-munkar reasoned.

Al-Mansur was very concerned about these rumors of uprising and feared a secession from Basra and several other provinces of his empire. In the year 142 (= 759/60 AD) he therefore traveled to Basra and had ʿAmr come to him to find out his attitude towards an-Nafs az-Zakīya. ʿAmr ibn ʿUbaid assured al-Mansūr of his neutrality and reminded him that he was not in favor of fighting with the sword. However, he refused the oath of allegiance demanded by him, arguing that if the caliph had lied to him from Taqīya , even an oath would be of no use because in this case he could also practice Taqīya. Other encounters with al-Mansour may have taken place. In one of them was al-Mansūr's son Muhammad, who later became Caliph al-Mahdī , present. On this occasion, ʿAmr criticized that al-Mansūr had given him this throne name ( al-Mahdī = "the one who was guided"). But Muhammad an-Nafsīya was also reserved about ʿAmr. Abū l-Faraj al-Isfahānī quotes him as saying that he does not want to take the oath of allegiance to a man who has not previously checked his honesty.

ʿAmr died at the beginning of the year 144 (= spring 761 AD) on the way back from the Hajj on the way from Mecca to Basra in the town of Marrān, four days' journey from Mecca. Al-Mansur will later pray at his grave, took his prayer spoken and a mourning poem have recited.

Works

ʿAmr ibn ʿUbaid compiled a commentary on the Qur'an based on the teachings of al-Hasan al-Basrī, which is largely lost. It was passed on within the Muʿtazila and was used in al-Andalus until the early 10th century . Only a few quotations have survived in the later Tafsīr literature. Otherwise, ʿAmr should also write a Kitāb al-ʿAdl wa-t-tawḥīd ("Book on Justice and Tawhīd ") and a Kitāb ar-Radd ʿalā al-qadariyya ("Book to refute the Qadarīya "). These books, too, have not survived on their own, but only in a few excerpts in later Muʿtazilite sources.

to teach

ʿAmr is best known for his teaching of free will, which for him implied that humans are responsible for their own actions and that God's judgment about human actions is absolutely just. Ibn Qutaiba (d. 889) therefore also counted him among the Qadarites. In the field of hadith, ʿAmr fought against traditions that supported predestinian views. He encountered resistance from those colleagues from the teaching circle of al-Hasan al-Basrī, who understood his legacy differently and represented such a predestinian view. These included in particular Aiyūb Sichtiyānī (d. 748-49), Yūnus ibn ʿUbaid al-ʿAbdī (d. 756 or 757) and ʿAbdallāh ibn ʿAun (d. 768). Amr's teaching of free will also had an impact on his understanding of the Koran on the basis of sura 85 : 22 to which a divine original was ascribed on a well-kept tablet ( lau seiner maḥfūẓ ). ʿAmr said that the sin of Abū Lahab , which is mentioned in sura 111: 1, could not have been on the well-kept tablet because otherwise Abū Lahab would not be responsible for his sins and there would be no argument to God towards people on the Last Day if they were sinners.

Regarding the doctrine of sin, ʿAmr meant that the Muslim who has committed great sins ( kabāʾir ) is at the level of Munāfiq ( hypocrite ). He justified this with the fact that in Sura 24: 4 those who discredit honorable women in a sinful way are called wrongdoers ( fāsiqūn ) and in Sura 9:67 the wrongdoers are equated with the hypocrites. Wāsil ibn ibn Atā 'is said to have persuaded him to use the term "wrongdoer" ( fāsiq ) for the great sinner , because all Muslims can agree on him, both the Kharijites as well as the Murji'ites and Shiites. He is said to have summarized the disputations that Wāsil ibn ʿAtā 'had with ʿAmr in a book. There were differences between the two men, especially with regard to the assessment of the first caliphs. While Wāsil disliked ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān , ʿAmr had a certain preference for him and placed Abū Bakr above ʿAlī ibn Abī Tālib .

ʿAmr's position regarding the divine punishment of great sinners was also known. ʿAmr took the view that God was forced to such a punishment because he had threatened the sinner in the Koran with punishment and a breach of the divine promise according to sura 13:31 was not possible. When the philologist Abū ʿAmr ibn ʿAlā 'rejected this with the argument that the Arabs only spoke of breaking a word when one had promised to do something good, ʿAmr had nothing to counter this.

In the area of Fiqh , ʿAmr was of the opinion that only that is forbidden that is explicitly stated or can be inferred by strict methods. For this reason he also pleaded for the permission of date wine ( nabīḏ ). He attributed the statement to his teacher al-Hasan al-Basrī that anyone who was drunk on date wine did not need to be flogged.

Judgment by posterity

In general, Muslim authors praised ʿAmr for his asceticism, sincerity and distance from the state. ʿAmr's visit to Mansūr was framed with legends presenting him as a preacher and critic of sovereign misconduct who successfully urged the caliph to do good. It was emphasized that he could pray the morning prayer with the wudoo 'of the evening prayer for forty years because he had not slept in the meantime, and that he practiced the hajj on foot for forty years . In this regard, he was also confronted with his father, whose work in the police force was considered particularly reprehensible. "The best of men is the son of the worst of men", it is said to have been said, and ʿAmr's father is even said to have agreed and compared the relationship between his son and himself with that between Abraham and his unbelieving father Āzar.

Sunni authors such as al-Chatīb al-Baghdādī complained, however, that Wāsil ibn ʿAtā 'ʿAmr had dissuaded the Sunnis from teaching. They also accused ʿAmr of blaming his teacher al-Hasan al-Basrī hadiths that were supposed to support Qadaritic views. Since ʿAmr was regarded as a qadaritic "propagandist" ( dāʿiya ), he was separated from him as a hadith authority over time. Already ʿAbdallāh ibn al-Mubārak and Maʿmar ibn Rāschid are said to have done this. The negative Sunni view of ʿAmr ibn ʿUbaid is particularly reflected in a text by the hadith scholar ad-Dāraqutnī (d. 995) entitled Aḫbār ʿAmr ibn ʿUbaid . It consists of a number of anecdotes about ʿAmr that make him the target of attacks on Qadaritic doctrine. A story included in the text is about a dream in which a man saw ʿAmr in the form of a monkey with a chain around his neck. When he asked him what was the reason for his appearance, the answer was: "My belief in the Qadarīya". Muʿtazilite authors, however, pointed out that ʿAmr was defended by traditionalist scholars such as Sufyān ath-Thaurī against the accusation of Qadarism.

literature

Arabic sources

• ʿAbd al-Ǧabbār ibn Aḥmad : Faḍl al-iʿtizāl wa-ṭabaqāt al-Muʿtazila . Ed. Fuʾād Saiyid. Tunis 1974. pp. 242-250. Digitized
• al-Ḫaṭīb al-Baġdādī: Taʾrīḫ Baġdād . Ed. Muṣṭafā ʿAbd al-Qādir ʿAṭā. Beirut 1997. Vol. XII, pp. 164-83. Online version
• ʿAlī Ibn-ʿUmar ad-Dāraquṭnī: Aḫbār ʿAmr Ibn-ʿUbaid Ibn-Bāb al-Muʿtazilī . Dār at-Tauḥīd li-'n-Našr, ar-Riyāḍ, 2006.
• Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb Ibn Sufyān al-Fasawī: Kitāb al-Maʿrifa wa-t-tārīḫ. Ed. Akram Ḍiyāʾ al-ʿUmarī. 3 Vols. Baghdad: Maṭbaʿat Aršād 1975. Vol. II, pp. 259–264. Digitized
• Abū Saʿīd Našwān al-Ḥimyarī: al-Ḥūr al-ʿīn ʿan kutub al-ʿilm aš-šarāʾif dūna n-nisāʾ al-ʿafāʾif. Dār Āzāl, Beirut, 1985. pp. 262-265.
• Ibn Ḥaǧar al-ʿAsqalānī : Tahḏīb at-tahḏīb . Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif an-Niẓāmīya, Hyderabad, 1907. Vol. VIII, pp. 70–75. Digitized
• Ahmad ibn Yaḥyā Ibn al-Murtaḍā: Ṭabaqāt al-Muʿtazila . Ed. Susanne Diwald-Wilzer. Steiner, Wiesbaden, 1961. pp. 35-41.
• Ibn Qutaiba : Kitāb al-Maʿārif . Ed. Ṯarwat ʿUkāša. Cairo 1960. pp. 482f.
• al-Masʿūdī : Murūǧ aḏ-ḏahab wa-maʿādin al-ǧauhar . Ed. and translate into French. by Barbier de Meynard et Pavet de Courteille . 9 vols. Imprimerie Impériale, Paris, 1861–1877. Vol. VI, pp. 208-212. Digitized

Secondary literature

• Osman Aydınlı: "İlk Mu'tezile'nin özgür irade söylemi: Amr b. Ubeyd ve kadar anlayışı" in Çorum İlahiyat Fakanschesi Dergisi (2002) 127–146. Online version
• Josef van Ess : Traditionalist polemics against ʿAmr b. ʿUbaid: to a text by ʿAlī B. ʿUmar ad-Dāraquṭnī . Steiner, Wiesbaden, 1967.
• Josef van Ess: "The origin of ʿAmr b. ʿUbaid" in Louis Pouzet, SJ (ed.): Mélanges in memoriam Michel Allard, SJ (1924-1976), Paul Nwyia, SJ (1925-1980) , special issue by Mélanges de l'Université Saint-Joseph 50, 2 (1984) pp. 731-744.
• Josef van Ess: Art. ʿAmr b. ʿObaid in Encyclopædia Iranica Vol. I, pp. 991-992. First published in 1989. Online version
• Josef van Ess: Theology and Society in the 2nd and 3rd Century Hijra. A History of Religious Thought in Early Islam . De Gruyter, Berlin, 1992. Vol. II, pp. 280-310, Vol. V, pp. 165-179.
• Wilferd Madelung: The Imam al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm and the Zaidite doctrine . De Gruyter, Berlin, 1965. pp. 33-38.
• HS Nyberg: "ʿAmr ibn ʿUbayd et Ibn al-Rāwendī, deux réprouvés" in R. Brunschvig and GE van Grunebaum: Classicisme et déclin culturel dans l'histoire de l'Islam . Paris, 1957. pp. 125-139.
• Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ Muḥammad as-Saiyid: ʿAmr Ibn-ʿUbaid wa-ārā'uhu al-kalāmīya . Maktabat Nahḍat aš-šarq, Cairo, 1985.
• W. Montgomery Watt: Art. "ʿAmr ibn ʿUbayd" in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition . Vol. I, p. 454a.
• William Montgomery Watt , Michael Marmura: The Islam II. Political developments and theological concepts. Stuttgart u. a. 1985. pp. 102-103, 212-217.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Cf. al-Ḫaṭīb al-Baġdādī: Taʾrīḫ Baġdād . 1997, Vol. XII, p. 164.
2. ↑ Cf. al-Ḫaṭīb al-Baġdādī: Taʾrīḫ Baġdād . 1997, Vol. XII, p. 165.
3. ↑ Cf. van Ess: Theology and Society . 1992, Vol. II, p. 4.
4. ↑ Cf. van Ess: Theology and Society . 1992, Vol. II, pp. 255, Vol. V, pp. 140-142.
5. ↑ Cf. al-Ḫaṭīb al-Baġdādī: Taʾrīḫ Baġdād . 1997, Vol. XII, p. 171.
6. ↑ Cf. Madelung: The Imam al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm . 1965, p. 37.
7. ↑ Cf. ʿAbd al-Ǧabbār: Faḍl al-iʿtizāl . 1974, p. 248.
8. ↑ Cf. Madelung: The Imam al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm . 1965, p. 36 and G. van Vloten: "Zur Abbasidengeschichte" in Zeitschrift der Morgenländische Gesellschaft 52 (1898) 213-226, here p. 225f.
9. ↑ Cf. ʿAbd al-Ǧabbār: Faḍl al-iʿtizāl . 1974, p. 247.
10. ↑ Cf. van Ess: Theology and Society . 1992, Vol. II, p. 288.
11. ↑ Cf. Madelung: The Imam al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm . 1965, p. 38.
12. ↑ Cf. al-Ḫaṭīb al-Baġdādī: Taʾrīḫ Baġdād . 1997, Vol. XII, p. 167.
13. ↑ Cf. van Ess: Theology and Society . 1992, Vol. II, p. 286.
14. ↑ Cf. ʿAbd al-Ǧabbār: Faḍl al-iʿtizāl . 1974, p. 246.
15. ↑ Cf. al-Ḫaṭīb al-Baġdādī: Taʾrīḫ Baġdād . 1997, Vol. XII, p. 167.
16. ↑ See e.g. B. al-Ḥimyarī: al-Ḥūr al-ʿīn . 1985, p. 264 and ʿAbd al-Ǧabbār: Faḍl al-iʿtizāl . 1974, p. 246.
17. ↑ Cf. van Ess: Theology and Society . 1992, Vol. II, pp. 289f.
18. ↑ See e.g. B. al-Masʿūdī: Murūǧ aḏ-ḏahab . Vol. VI, pp. 209f.
19. ↑ Cf. Abū l-Faraǧ al-Iṣfahānī: Maqātil aṭ-ṭālibīyīn . Ed. as-Saiyid Ahmad qaqar. Manšūrā aš-šarīf ar-Radī, Qum 1416h. P. 187.
20. ↑ Cf. van Ess: Theology and Society . 1992, Vol. II, pp. 284f.
21. ↑ Cf. Ibn al-Murtaḍā: Ṭabaqāt al-Muʿtazila . 1961, p. 40f.
22. ↑ Cf. van Ess: Theology and Society . 1992, Vol. II, p. 299.
23. ↑ See also the essay by Aydınlı: İlk Mu'tezile'nin özgür irade söylemi . 2002.
24. ↑ Cf. Watt / Marmura: Der Islam II. 1985, p. 104f.
25. ↑ Cf. Ibn Ḥaǧar al-ʿAsqalānī: Tahḏīb at-tahḏīb . 1907, Vol. VIII, p. 70.
26. ↑ See Tilman Nagel: Guidance and Caliphate. Attempt on a fundamental question in Islamic history . Orientalisches Seminar Bonn, Bonn, 1975. pp. 321–323.
27. ↑ Cf. Ibn al-Murtaḍā: Ṭabaqāt al-Muʿtazila . 1961, pp. 37-39.
28. ↑ Cf. Watt / Marmura: Der Islam II. 1985, p. 215.
29. ↑ Cf. Fuat Sezgin: History of Arabic literature . Vol. 1. Leiden: Brill 1967. p. 597.
30. ↑ Cf. van Ess: Traditionistische Polemik . 1967, arab. Text § 16.
31. ↑ Cf. van Ess: Theology and Society . 1992, Vol. II, p. 302.
32. ↑ Cf. al-Fasawī: al-Maʿrifa . 1975, Vol. II, p. 260.
33. ↑ See e.g. B. al-Ḥimyarī: al-Ḥūr al-ʿīn . 1985, p. 264 and ʿAbd al-Ǧabbār: Faḍl al-iʿtizāl . 1974, p. 242.
34. ↑ Cf. Ibn al-Murtaḍā: Ṭabaqāt al-Muʿtazila . 1961, p. 36.
35. ↑ See e.g. B. al-Ḥimyarī: al-Ḥūr al-ʿīn . 1985, p. 163.
36. ↑ Cf. al-Ḫaṭīb al-Baġdādī: Taʾrīḫ Baġdād . 1997, Vol. XII, p. 165.
37. ↑ Cf. Ibn Ḥaǧar al-ʿAsqalānī: Tahḏīb at-tahḏīb . 1907, Vol. VIII, pp. 70f.
38. ↑ Cf. van Ess: Theology and Society . 1992, Vol. II, p. 303.
39. ↑ Cf. Watt / Marmura: Der Islam II. 1985, p. 102f.
40. ↑ Cf. ʿAbd al-Ǧabbār: Faḍl al-iʿtizāl . 1974, p. 243.